Democratic strategist James Carville said Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed campaign was "reducible to one moment": her "devastating" response on The View saying she wouldn’t have done anything differently from President Joe Biden.
"The country wants something different. And she’s asked—as so often the case in a friendly audience on The View—‘How would you be different than Biden?’" Carville said on a Saturday episode of The Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller.
"It’s the one question that you exist to answer, alright? That is it. That’s the money question," Carville continued, raising his voice. "That’s the one that everybody wants to know the answer to. And you freeze. You literally freeze. And say ‘Well, I can’t think of anything.’"
On an Oct. 8 episode of The View, co-host Sunny Hostin asked Harris, "If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?"
"There is not a thing that comes to mind," Harris responded. "And I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact."
Carville emphasized the importance of that answer.
"When we go back and history unearths this, it’s going to be right there on The View," Carville said. "I think her name is Sunny Hostin, Houston, whatever, asked the question. That’s the most devastating answer you can imagine."
Carville also pointed to an NBC News poll, published less than two weeks before Harris’s appearance on The View, that found 65 percent of registered voters felt the United States was on the wrong track. He suggested that the Harris campaign believed the "odiousness of Trump combined with the Dobbs decision" would outweigh American’s desire for change.
Hostin, meanwhile, blamed Harris’s loss on "misogyny" and "racism."